Tips for Student Theses

What you can expect: An ambitious work with very intensive support

The supervision of Student Thesis and diploma is carried out by myself and one of the research assistants or scholarship holders (WMS). As a thesis or diploma student you are fully involved in the research work of the group.
Every diploma student should discuss intensively with his WMS and with me in the initial phase of his work in order to be able to recognize and avoid undesirable developments at an early stage. During the rest of the process, there should be at least one discussion per week with the WMS and one per month with me. This is the absolute minimum! Both your WMS and I will of course be available much more often if necessary.

What we expect: Your services

We expect an above-average commitment to the goals of our project. As a rule, work in our group is practically oriented. Therefore we expect the following services from you:

• Software
  a functioning component of our system. Part of working in a team is also to follow some rules of the game when creating. The rules of the game include, for example, conventions in programming and the proper use of a version control system. Our project has now reached a level of complexity that makes it necessary to specify these things not only by word of mouth but also in writing. We are currently writing down our rules of the game and will soon add a reference to them here.
  By the way, this kind of teamwork is an excellent preparation for working in a team, which you will certainly encounter in your later professional life.
• Documentation
  Since in our project also the student group members are not supposed to produce software for the wastebasket but for practical use and especially for a later development, a suitable documentation is required for this purpose and in English language. This includes a manual page, a clear definition of the boundary conditions under which your software will work, as well as a description of the interfaces and your large and small design decisions, if not included in your thesis. The further details are also defined by our rules of the game.
• Elaboration (diploma thesis)
  Often the actual thesis is the hardest part, because students find their results trivial and unimportant at the end of a thesis and cannot see why a lot of paperwork is necessary now. However, the diploma thesis is one of the most important achievements of your work, as you write down your results, give reasons and critically evaluate them yourself. It is usually your first scientific work. There are some rules that make it much easier to write the thesis. One of them is to start writing right at the beginning of dealing with the topic of the paper. I have written down a few more rules and tips here.
• Defense
  is also a very important learning experience, because you will need to communicate the results of your work to your bosses or customers later on. In our project, we practice defense by having you present in our EZAG long before the actual defense, so that you can get hints, advice and criticism from the group.

All these services contribute to the evaluation of your work, even if only thesis and defense are explicitly mentioned in the examination regulations. Unless your WMS or I have not tested your software and found it usable and good, i.e. in accordance with our rules, you cannot expect a good grade for your diploma thesis.

But a marginal note is still necessary here:
It is unavoidable (but fortunately very rare) that we misjudge the complexity of a task we give you. But you can be sure that we are self-critical enough to acknowledge this. In this case, even a non-functioning software can lead to a good grade.